Tiger Woods Fails Parody, Streisands 'Offending' Content As A Result

from the bogey dept

The last time we wrote about Tiger Woods, it was way back in the day when he was best known for putting golf balls in small holes instead of [Ed.: Tim, did you really think we were going to allow this to stay in the post?]. Even back then, however, Woods demonstrated his lack of knowledge concerning the Streisand effect, trying to stifle a story and spotlighting it instead. It seems the lesson has yet to be learned. This go around, Woods has decided to respond to a barely note-worthy piece of obvious satire in Golf Digest by issuing a formal rebuttal to it in The Players' Tribune because... well, I don't know why really. The satire itself is both clearly marked and decidedly vanilla.

If you hadn't seen it—and nobody had, because it wasn't yet online—Woods is apoplectic about a fake Q&A by sportswriting legend Dan Jenkins. It is labeled as "fake" on the cover, and in the headline, and in the table of contents, so no one, not even America's dads, could possibly have believed that it was actually Tiger Woods declaring that he fired caddy swing coach Butch Harmon because "Butchie was making me tip too many people."

There's no exaggeration here when it comes to how clearly this piece is noting its own satire. The damned title of the piece is: My (Fake) Interview With Tiger*: *Or how it plays out in my mind. The fake Q&A includes such scathing satire as:

Q:TV still loves you.

Tiger: The print press still loves you. The average fans still love you. Of course the average fans still love the Kardashians, too, but I feel sure America will find a cure for this someday. I just do what Steiny says.

Yawn. Anyway, the guy that used to be good at golf decided to issue his own formal and very real rebuttal to the fake Tiger that Dan Jenkins created in his head, leading to the very first ever war of words between a real and fictional version of the same professional sports star.

Did you read Dan Jenkins' interview with me in the latest Golf Digest? I hope not. Because it wasn't me. It was some jerk he created to pretend he was talking to me. That's right, Jenkins faked an interview, which fails as parody, and is really more like a grudge-fueled piece of character assassination. Journalistically and ethically, can you sink any lower?

I like to think I have a good sense of humor, and that I'm more than willing to laugh at myself.

Mmm, no on both counts, I think. In the meantime, Woods' going to battle over this has, you guessed it, put a big old spotlight on the now published article. It's, frankly, all the free advertising the author could ever want. And for what? For satire that's barely funny and would have otherwise gone completely unnoticed? That's called landing in the rough, Tiger.

Filed Under: dan jenkins, fake interview, golf digest, parody, streisand effect, tiger woods

Tiger Woods Gags UK Media; Alerts World To Nude Photos

from the yikes dept

It really was just a couple months ago that a ton of press coverage came from the ridiculous attempt by British oil company Trafigura to gag the UK press. All that did was turn what had been a minor story not many people were paying attention to into a huge story that everyone knew about. But what if the story is already huge? Tiger Woods (and we'd gotten this far without having to talk about him...) has apparently taken the same path as Trafigura and has gagged the UK press from writing about certain details of his personal life. Woods apparently had lawyers in London take action to get a court injunction against the press reporting certain things about his personal life -- though, they're still free to write about this ridiculous injunction, and they're certainly wasting little time in doing that.

So what, exactly, is the UK press barred from discussing? Well, none of the UK articles say -- obviously. But, since we live in the US, it's not hard to find reports that say the specific injunction bars the the publication of any nude photos or images of Woods having sex. And, even though the court order states "this Order is not to be taken as an admission that any such photographs exist," it certainly sounds like a very loud clanging bell announcing exactly that. And, of course, this means the race must now be on for various tabloids/celebrity gossip sites and the like to find exactly those photos and videos.

Given the Trafigura situation, though, would you think that someone in Tiger's camp -- or among his UK lawyers -- would recognize how incredibly badly this would backfire? Not only does it continue to make the UK look like a laughingstock when it comes to freedom of the press and free speech, it only calls that much more attention to what, apparently, Woods would like to remain hidden.

Filed Under: media gag, streisand effect, tiger woods, uk

How To Respond To Criticism: EA's Tiger Woods Walks On Water Ad

from the nice-shot dept

In an age where anyone can speak up, and anyone can criticize you, the first reaction of many folks is to hit back hard -- even trying to take down critical info. As we all know, that's exactly the wrong thing to do. But, it's still quite difficult to turn something that's negative into a positive quite as well as video game company EA just did. Mathew Ingram has the details, but basically, when last year's version of EA's Tiger Woods golfing game came out, some users made a video jokingly pointing out that a glitch in the game allows Tiger Woods to stand in the middle of a water trap and take a shot: With this year's version coming out, EA actually took that video as inspiration for a new ad, "responding" to that video, by showing that it wasn't a "glitch" at all, but that Tiger really can walk on water and hit a golf ball: Now that's a good response to some criticism.

Filed Under: advertising, criticism, golf, response, tiger woods, video, walk on water
Companies: ea